


Sweet Nothing

by spinel



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinel/pseuds/spinel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But I'm trying to hope with nothing to hold // I'm living on such sweet nothing</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Jamie grows up and Jack doesn't know how to deal with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Max (deathtomato)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Max+%28deathtomato%29).



> Dear Max,
> 
> Well. This turned out way more angsty (and much _much_ longer) than I anticipated. I'm so sorry, Max! Hopefully you'll like it anyways. Some could read it as very slightly Jack/Jamie if you squint.
> 
> Title and lyrics from _Sweet Nothing_ by Calvin Harris ft. Florence Welch.

Jack doesn't realise he has started worrying until Jamie has grown older. Until Jamie just huffs and sighs when snow flurries dampen his clothes all at once or he spends ten minutes trying to start his car. 

"There are always special ones," North tells him over a cup of cocoa. Jack isn't the one drinking it. He's trying to find comfort in attempting to derail North's small ice sculpted train using judiciously placed verglas when he's bodily lifted by tattooed arms and held up to North's nose.

"Hey!" Jack squeaks. 

"You listen to me, Jack Frost. There will always be children. Maybe not this one any longer, but there will be others."

"You think I don't know that? I do!" Jack wrenches himself out of North's palms and skids to the other side of the room. "It's just... I miss him. And don't dangle other children in front of me! You know I'm doing my job and I'm doing it even better than before."

"There have been more snow days in the last few years then ever before," North acknowledges ruefully. "Why not try to make his life a little easier? I'm sure he'll come around."

So Jack does. He eases the snow when Jamie goes to work and makes sure not to ice his car over. Now Jamie doesn't huff but he doesn't laugh either and he spends more and more time by his window. Jack has to stuff his fingers in his mouth not to start ice crystals to cover Jamie's view of the street.

Jamie isn't smiling anymore. He also stops taking his car out.

Next winter he wanders out to sit on his porch. He isn't wearing a dressing gown, and he isn't wearing any slippers. His head is in his hands. As much as Jack wants to stop the blizzard he started, it isn't easy once the elements are in full force. He tries to shield Jamie from the wind and the snow, but he can't do it forever.

"Just leave it, Jack!" Jamie screams suddenly, looking up at the skies. "Why do you have to make everything so difficult?" His toes are almost white and covered in snow, and he's shivering. Jack is filled with dread and anger all at once.

"Why are you even out here, Jamie? You know this is a blizzard, and you're not even wearing any shoes!"

"...Jack?" Jamie's eyes are wide and round. Jack has just realised he's been yelling, and that he's stepped into the safe bubble he's tried to make around Jamie. Wind is blowing and howling around them, and snowflakes blur the space between him and Jamie. 

"Jack!" The rest of Jamie's words are muffled, and that's because he's launched himself at Jack and burrowed his face in Jack's neck.

Jack tries to hug him but Jamie's holding on too tight. He's so strong. He's on his knees now, but he's still as tall as Jack. And he smells different, not like laundry detergent and sweat with a hint of sweetness anymore. he smells... muskier, and his cheek is scratchy. 

But his shoulders are trembling, and that, Jack does know how to deal with.

"Hey, hey, Jamie."

A sniffle is his only answer. "I thought you'd left. I sat and I sat last winter at my window, and there was nothing. And then my car would start and there was no more snow and people have been saying I need to go to a psychiatrist but... you're real. And you're still here."

Jack scoffs and pushes Jamie away enough that he can look into those red-rimmed eyes. "Of course I'm real! You make me real." He smiles, a little wicked, and snowflake lands on Jamie's nose. 

It's Jamie's first smile in a while.

"Why did you leave me?" Jamie's voice is plaintive.

"I thought... I thought you were too grown," Jack says, a little ashamed. "That I was making you late, and that you didn't have time for me and my distractions anymore."

Jamie looks stricken. "Never! It's just working, and the commute, and my job drove me nuts, and... It's really difficult being a grown up," he mumbles into Jack's neck. "I don't believe in anything anymore."

Dread grows in Jack's stomach, because Jamie's now been out on the porch for a long time and his head is growing heavier and heavier on Jack's shoulder. "But I'm here. You believe in me, don't you?"

"I thought I didn't."

"But you do! So trust me, Jamie. Come on, let's go back inside."

Jamie is conspicuously silent. 

"You weren't going to." Jack is getting angrier. "You weren't going to but now you are, Jamie, you **are** going back inside even if I have to drag you there!" 

Jack starts nudging Jamie towards the front door, and it takes a while but he gets him settled in front of a heater, wrapped in blankets. Jamie's teeth are clacking.

"This storm is going well," Jack says. "I think I'll stay a bit longer this time, what do you think?" He leans against Jamie and sneaks his arm around the man's neck.

This year, winter bleeds almost into May.

"You were right, North. There are special ones," Jack says, and Jamie laughs merrily as he pours the hot grog between him and North. Bunny sits by the decked out tree, Tooth is flitting about looking at the framed baby pictures on the mantlepiece, and Sandy is looking very intently at the cot in the corner, sand itching at his fingers.

A snowstorm rages outside.

the end.


End file.
